Oscar Pistorius murder appeal verdict due on Thursday

South Africa's Supreme Court of Appeal will announce on Thursday its verdict on an attempt by state prosecutors to have Oscar Pistorius convicted of murder for shooting dead his girlfriend.

The Paralympic sprinter was found guilty last year of the lesser crime of culpable homicide - the equivalent to manslaughter - for killing Reeva Steenkamp in the early hours of Valentine's Day, 2013.

Pistorius, who said he mistook Steenkamp for an intruder when he opened fire, was released from jail on parole in October after serving one year of his five-year sentence.

"The judgement will be delivered at 09:45 on 3 December," the court registrar said in a brief emailed statement.

At the crux of the appeal case was how trial judge Thokozile Masipa interpreted the principle of "dolus eventualis" - awareness of the likely outcome of an action - under which she acquitted Pistorius of murder.

State prosecutor Gerrie Nel argued that Pistorius should be convicted of murder as he intended to kill whoever was behind the toilet door through which he fired four bullets.

"Firing through the door at torso level into a small cubicle ... the foresight must be that someone would die," Nel told the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein at the hearing in November.